Get it? Let's say he did write it. Well, he's not really admitting that. He's making fun of the way some conservative bloggers think they've found evidence that he wrote it. He knows most sensible people believe their evidence is bullshit, and this has been amusing to him because he — in this scenario of mine — knows that, actually, they are right.

Now, confronted in the airport, he's handed an opportunity to stir them up into a frenzy — create a vortex around himself — ah, that feels so good! — by telling one of these conservative bloggers that he really did write it. Ah, ha ha ha.

And — he anticipates — that they will ultimately be beaten over the head with how stupid they were to have believed him when obviously he was just jerking their chain.

And this will be especially funny, because he'll know that these people, his enemies, who look like complete idiots, were actually right. And what better way is there to throw everyone off the track?

It might have been "brilliant" psy-ops if the blogger had brought it up, but she didn't. He did. That's not brilliant; it's just weird.

The only thing that's indisputable is that Ayers likes to jerk chains. Given that he's an asshole, that's not surprising. It doesn't, however, clarify anything with regard to the authorship of that dopey book.

"It could be that, or it could be he wants to stick it to Obama for some reason, make him look worse. Obama not as much the useful idiot as Ayres thought he was?"

That is an interesting thought. I would imgaine that Ayers and the other hard left folks back in Chicago know about some pretty big skeletons in Bambi's closet. After the Dems get waxed in 2010, Bambi may not be able to go centrist the way Bill Clinton did for fear of his Leftist friends coming forth with the goods.

Yes and I wrote it under an incandescent light bulb.. And I used a manual typewriter like the one that wrote the Killian memos… and I took a break one night and found OJ’s Akita wondering the neighborhood all covered in blood and that’s when I called Marcia Clark ;)

It occurs to me that the thing to watch for is Hillary. If she ever resigns, even if it's because someone in her family is "sick" or something, that will signal that the wheels have come off this administration, even to the left.

At that point, the aforementioned flood gates of info on Obama will probably surge forth with great abandon.

Plus, he gets to dwell in the good and righteous place of never having lied about it, and get the credit, if with an asterisk, for a best seller where it's due.

"Yeah, right. Of course I did."

I recall clearly the epiphany of discovering this subterfuge ironic sarcasm when I was about ten, a joy that endured for a good year, and recall even more clearly having it slapped out of me when it wore thin.

I suspect we'd first see Bill trying to quietly peel off and line up as many troops as possible for what would likely ensue.

You know Bill's been doing this since the primaries looked close. Hillary has survived, if not untarnished, at least politically viable after more than 10 years of conservative scrutiny. I don't know what Axel and Rham could pull out that's not already known. Unless the trigger man in the Foster incident worked for Acorn...lol.

If things truly go this way, the latent identity politics of the left (read as soft racism...or just plain ol' racism) will rear its ugly but inevitable head once again.

Personally I think Bill Ayers had a big involvement in Dreams of My Fathers, as reported by Cashill and also Andersen (whose sources include Michelle Obama herself). I doubt Ayers wrote the whole book, but Obama was having writers block and went to "just a guy in the neighborhood" to help him through it. It is just another example of Obama not being candid, exaggerating his own writing, and having more significant ties to radicals like Ayers than he lets on.

Of course this comment in the airport by Ayers was a joke. But ask yourself this, assuming it happened, it was unsolicitted. So what right wing blogs and writers is Ayers monitoring? Then again, maybe a small "c" communist really does care about royalties!

Because it was the single, solitary life accomplishment that BO pointed to in his presidential campaign. If that styrofoam pillar is pulled down, then the whole House of Obama comes down with it. And it would be bad enough if he had used and then denied using an unknown ghostwriter, but that Obama's amanuensis is a radical and unrepentant domestic terrorist whom BO has denied having a relationship with is something the American people will not accept.

Likewise, the MSM's remaining credibility is also at stake. If BO were as big a fraud as this situation (if true) makes him, then their abject failure to vet him more carefully during the campaign sounds their death knell.

Good lord...Ann, you are so full of shit it's almost impossible to believe you're a professor.

This is what Ayers said...and if you actually think it somehow proves he had anything to do with writing the book, opposed to yanking this fool's chain...you're as dumb as your loyal wing nut sycophants:

Wing Nut: Then, unprompted he said--"I wrote Dreams From My Father." Wing Nut: oh, so you admit it. He said--"Michelle asked me to." Wing Nut I looked at him. He seemed eager. He's about my height, short (this is somehow important?). He went on to say--"and if you can prove it, we can split the royalties."

He says Michelle asked him to write it and maybe they can share the royalties...and you buy into it as if he's actually admitting something to this idiot...who thinks it's his right to confront people in airports no less?

Ayers is one hell of lot smarter than the crazos who spend their lives whining and bitching about everything Obama...and this kind of confrontation proves he's also one hell of a lot more witty.

I think Ayers was goofing around, but I also think that he was hoping to provoke Obama into some kind of response. Obama since his election cannot remain above any kind fray. This situation represents yet another opportunity for an unforced error -- Obama didn't have to say the police acted "stupidly", he could have kept his mouth shut. Obama similarly doesn't have to say anything about Bill Ayers and Dreams, but will that stop him?

The Hoosier - "Churchill at least waited until he won a war before writing his memoirs."

And most people wait until they've actually accomplished something in life before writing theirs...you know, like Princess Sarah and her 400 page (and it tool all of 4 months for...somebody else...to write it)...history of her own personal universe.

Of course, this would also explain Obama's policies re: all thing Latin American.

On a more serious note, I've assumed since I first read about this issue that if Ayers did write Dreams he wouldn't be able to sit on the knowledge. And Ann is right; this is exactly how that aging psycho punk would play it.

Now the question is, does this fizzle or does the White House bite. Since going postal over this would be extremely stupid, I expect some full-court pushback from team Obama.

Ayers is an insane freak who, somewhere in his demented soul knows that he's an insane freak and knows that the impossible has happened: he and his insane freak buddy Soros and their insane freak protege Obama RULE THE UNITED STATES! So of course he's giddy and on a permanent high. Wouldn't you be in his place?!

Ayers is an insane freak who, somewhere in his demented soul knows that he's an insane freak and knows that the impossible has happened: he and his insane freak buddy Soros and their insane freak protege Obama RULE THE UNITED STATES! So of course he's giddy and on a permanent high. Wouldn't you be in his place?!

I'm impressed that you would attempt to prove someone else insane, by writing AN INSANE POST! Pot meet kettle.

Of course, I'm sure Ayers is almost never "confronted" by people who want to point out to him how loathsome he is, so I'm sure he never had any idea of the range of things he might say to such a wingnut.

Again though, this blows over and the Jeremys of the world can chortle at the paranoid freaks on the right as long as the White House stays silent.

Leary's blog recounts a meeting on October 5. The Corner has a post from October 3 describing National Journal's Will Englund directly questioning Ayers on the topic. Ayers said the same thing -- I wrote it, get me some royalties.

A couple of days after that, he runs into someone in an airport Starbucks and seizes the opportunity to repeat the performance. The obvious interpretation is Ayers enjoys being in the spotlight -- he could scoffed at Englund's question, he could have said nothing at all to Leary, but he chose to say pretty much the same thing to each of them.

I don't know anything about the reliability of either reporter, but certainly Englund's exchange with Ayers, at least, was witnessed, and there would be nothing in it for him to make up something that could easily be refuted if it weren't true.

I don't think the "ghostwriter" story necessarily matters politically, but it matters historically. The book is obviously an important part of Obama's climb to the top, and any student of history will want to get to the truth of the matter for that reason alone. Hell, historians are still debating whether Abe Lincoln had a serious romantic relationship with Ann Rutledge. Clearly, that matters not a whit to anything going on today, but I still want to know the answer.

As for the authorship of DFMF, I don't know what is more troubling to Obama's fans: the idea that Obama DIDN'T write it or the idea that Ayers DID. That's an important question to ponder, because, as I see it, the only aspect of this story that makes it SEEM outlandish is the supposed involvement of Ayers, of all people. The discovery that Obama -- a literary novice, at best -- had significant help in producing a book of that caliber would hardly be a shocker in and of itself.

I'm not sure what the authorship of "Dreams from my Father" is equal to. It really was presented as a legitimizing proof of accomplishment for Obama. A ghost-writer is significant in that context. If Ayers is the one Obama went to that matters as well, particularly as we were all utterly scorned and ridiculed for any suggestion whatsoever that Ayers, this "guy in my neighborhood", was any sort of friend of Barack Obama's.

Also, if it really doesn't matter if Obama had someone else write or partially write his book, and it doesn't... then he lied about something trivial.

I understand that some people don't count the trivial lies but I'm the opposite. How hard is it *really* to tell the truth about things that don't matter? At least if it's something *big* I can sympathize. Really, the trivial lie is like vandalism... destruction for no purpose. The important lie is more like stealing Christmas presents for your kids. It's still *absolutely* wrong... but a person can understand the temptation. What is there to understand about the temptation of a lie that has no purpose?

In any case... I read what the original blogger said and I give her kudos for being really clear about the way Ayers answered and that it was not an "admission" at all. She could have taken the quote out of context. She didn't.

Conrad - "As for the authorship of DFMF, I don't know what is more troubling to Obama's fans: the idea that Obama DIDN'T write it or the idea that Ayers DID."

People who respect and support the President don't believe any of this bullshit. (We also know that if Ayers or anyone other than President Obama had written the book someone, somewhere would have ferreted it out.)

People who believe this silly drivel or that something like this would not have been conclusively proven by now probably still believe Princess Sarah saw human footprints inside dinosaur tracks, too. (Duh)

Americans who support President Obama also don't believe he's a Muslim, a communist, a socialist or the anti-Christ either.

Oh, and for the local "birther" crowd...he was actually born in Hawaii and he's an American.

Like what? Like describing rather clearly that it was obvious that Ayers was effing with their heads?

What isn't clear is if it was a case of the sort of double-down effing that Althouse posits or not. Ayers seems to think it's pretty cool how he gets to hide in plain sight and never served a day for his youthful indiscretions... of which he has not repented.

Wouldn't it be awesome if some local TSA guy said "Oh, Hell's no! There's no way I'm letting your terrorist ass into that terminal!" and then get the agency to take it on themselves to put Ayers on the 'No Fly' list.

Let the Obama administration go on record taking that asshole off the no-fly list.

It's amazing to me that Cat Stevens, who never hurt a soul, got put on the no-fly zone (the U.S. has since fixed that), but a known and unrepentant bomber has no problem.

I agree Synova. You can only "fuck with the heads" of people who don't realize they are being fucked with. The "idiot" right wing blogger realized she was being fucked with, therefore Ayres' attempts at head fuckery were unsuccessful.

Alex - You represent exactly what I refer to: a local wing nut (following Ann's lead of course) blaming the world's ills on President Obama.

You conveniently dismiss the fact that Bush left him, holding the bag on the worst worldwide financial crisis since the Great Depression, two wars and a collapsing American economy, constantly whining and bitching at his inability to straighten things out in a matter of months.

Ann knows exactly what's she's doing when she throws out the right wing chum and relishes the fact (and of course the sycophancy that it includes) that so many gladly lap it up.

Obama wanted the job. You have to want it REEEEEALLY bad to get it, despite your laundry list.

"left holding the bag" doesn't really describe what happened. A better analogy is going way, way out of your way to get the job as the janitor at the shithouse and then complain that there's feces everywhere.

backyard conservative is a hoot. I especially liked her linking to Ayers' page in the Dowling Family Genealogy at rootsweb.

RootsWeb.com, Inc. is NOT responsible for the content of the GEDCOMs uploaded through the WorldConnect Program. If you have a problem with a particular entry, please contact the submitter of said entry.

Anybody with access to a public library computer can post whatever they like.

Scott - What does President Obama "wanting" the job have to do with what Bush left behind or for that matter, the constant harping about literally everything he says or does?

Because constant harping about a president is confined to the right?

LOL

Besides, your phrase "left holding the bag" is spicy hot failsauce on a number of levels. I'll just point out the most obvious...the phrase is generally used when one person involved in something leaves another that was involved in that something to take all the blame. You can't be "left holding the bag" unless you were "there" to be "left with it". Are you insinuating that there was an Bush/Obama conspiracy?

Jeremy - I don't think anyone here is embarrassed by President Bush. We all know how you, the left and the MSM treated President Bush for those 8 years. Totally unfair, indecent and hateful. You never gave him a fair shot, and everyone knows it. I will never forgive or forget. Payback's a bitch.

Of course Ayers was screwing with her. And who cares if he did write the book. Only an moron or an idiot son like Christopher Buckley would have thought Obama qualified to be President because he wrote that book.

Jason, was Cat Stevens put on on purpose, or was that an accident, because his made up name was the same as someone else’s? It’s been a while and I don’t remember the specifics.

As for the book, it seems likely he was screwing with her. It would certainly be interesting if it were true but it's just speculation really. It's weird of him if that is his standard thing to say to total strangers, though.

You think Buckley (and another Christopher...Hitchens)...voted for President Obama...because they liked his book?"

Buckley said that he was voting for Obama because he was "errudite" and had "written books" and was a "Harvard Man". No kidding. You can look it up. Buckley is the living breathing example of the idiot son.

Scott - I never said President Obama didn't know what he was inheriting. Your parsing of words doesn't change the facts at hand.

Is it not in your DNA to admit you used the wrong phrase?

I just find it rather disingenuous and self-serving for the right wing to expect him to solve the problems left behind in a matter of months.

Thanks for giving me the best laugh of the day. Nothing says self-serving like an agenda that will not only NOT fix what's wrong, but will exacerbate the problems to incredibly unnecessary levels. Further, that agenda is extremely self-serving in the way it's been targeted at past-Obama/democrat supporters and future demographics. Self-serving indeed. Not good for all Americans, good his peeps. Whoops...was the use of that word in the context of an Obama discussion racist?

Why not just admit your a right wing zealot who will never agree with anything President Obama does, regardless of how good it is for America?

For the record, I voted for Bush the first time, but it was more a vote against the inventor of the internet than for Bush. He had completely lost my vote by the end of 2003 and his administrations actions only confirmed that I was right to vote against him.

And I bet you also voted for George W. Bush...TWICE.

See above. Check to make sure your caps lock is not stuck.

After helping vote Bush into office, and seeing what he did as President, and then to bitch about President Obama, after about 9 months on the job is un-American and just plain stupid.

You couldn't be more wrong, and, frankly, your zealotry is showing. First, I give you this, right from Hillary's own pie hole.

"We have the right to disagree and debate with any administration."

I happened to agree with her then and still do. Just because someone's not been in office for very long doesn't mean they can't make horribly lame, amateurish mistakes...which both Bush and Obama did.

Not have the right to point out an administration's mistakes? Any administration? Un-American indeed.

You are such an ass, you can't even be polite to people when they agree with you. As for Buckley, since you are too lazy to look it up, here is what he said

"As for Senator Obama: He has exhibited throughout a “first-class temperament,” pace Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s famous comment about FDR. As for his intellect, well, he’s a Harvard man, though that’s sure as heck no guarantee of anything, these days. Vietnam was brought to you by Harvard and (one or two) Yale men. As for our current adventure in Mesopotamia, consider this lustrous alumni roster. Bush 43: Yale. Rumsfeld: Princeton. Paul Bremer: Yale and Harvard. What do they all have in common? Andover! The best and the brightest.

I’ve read Obama’s books, and they are first-rate. He is that rara avis, the politician who writes his own books"

Buckley then goes on to admit that Obama is a leftist but that he is sure that someone of his intelligence will realize quickly the error of his ways. Buckley's reason for voting for Obama was that he went to Harvard and wrote books and anyone who did that would quickly abandon leftism upon assuming power.

"It actually dates back to the middle of the eighteenth century in Britain. The original version was to give somebody the bag to hold, meaning to keep somebody occupied or distracted while you slipped away. Figuratively, it meant to leave somebody in the lurch, to let them stay around to take the blame for something that had gone wrong."

So, based on this specific definition, when Bush "(gave) somebody (Obama) the bag to hold, meaning to keep somebody (Obama) occupied or distracted while you slipped away"...would be pretty much the case here.

And..."leave(ing) somebody in the lurch, to let them (Obama) stay around to take the blame for something that had gone wrong" appears to also pertain here.

Your definition that relates to someone already having to be there in the first place, before they're "left holding the bag" is too rigid and meant only as an excuse for what Bush created and left behind.

*Oh, and when you say: "Nothing says self-serving like an agenda that will not only NOT fix what's wrong, but will exacerbate the problems to incredibly unnecessary levels."

Did you confer with Edgar Cayce before you wrote that...or are we dealing with someone who already knows what will happen in the future?

99% of the people here do nothing more than hurl insults and right wing drivel at me whenever I counter anything you idiots post. (Just look at all of the people here who actually believe Ayers wrote President Obama's book. I think they're assholes, too.)

You and others here agree on about 99% of the crap that is posted...no matter how ridiculous or far fetched...because you're afraid to death of upsetting your buddies or the Queen.

You were wrong. Sorry you are too pathetic to admit it. More to the point, I agree with you about Ayers and you are still just a nasty troll. And people sometimes hurl insults at you. But mostly they make cogent arguments that you are unable to answer. If you were smarter and new more, you wouldn't get insulted as much.

Do you pay close attention to world economics? It doesn't matter who's president...over the next few years, if not longer, the US is in for a major shitstorm financially.

Not hunkering down and doing everything possible to mitigate the coming inflation and currency upheavals, to me, smacks of fiddling while Rome burns.

I have a family to worry about. I'd like not to have to quadruple my food and energy bills to take care of them because the dollar suddenly became devalued.

All of this extraneous bullshit Team Obama is trying to pull off is only going to make matters worse because they were not going 24-7 on an easily identifiable problem. Indeed, the debt these guys ran up...on their lonesome (no bag holding necessary), is going to, again, exacerbate what's about to happen.

Almost 40 years of building entitlement after entitlement after entitlement is going to come home to roost along with a number of our other less attractive poultry and you're worrying about bullshit.

This isn't a left vs right point of view. Both sides are culpable. The problem is that the left currently holds the reins and they're not...doing...their...job.

"Only an moron or an idiot son like Christopher Buckley would have thought Obama qualified to be President because he wrote that book."

So, when you say the reason Buckley supported Obama was "because he wrote that book," which part of you was handling the keyboard when you posted this?

"Buckley said that he was voting for Obama because he was "errudite" and had "written books" and was a "Harvard Man."

So which was it, John? Was it merely because he wrote a book or because he was erudite or because he was a Harvard man?

You're confusing yourself.

Oh, and as for your inane comment that I'm just a troll (translation: you disagree with us) and that the reason people hurl insults at me is because "they make cogent arguments that you are unable to answer."...to which part of your Buckley book back and forth argument are you referring to as being "cogent?"

It is impossible to believe that someone could lie as much as Obama has. So he must not have lied. Even if we know intellectually that almost everything he has said has either been a lie, or a misdirection.

We are straying into very strange territory. I suspect something will happen. Reality has a way of intruding on carefully constructed mythologies.

Wouldn't it be amusing if every thing the right wing wackos have said turned out to be true? But everyone, from left to right, in politics, business and media, go on talking as if nothing happened?

Scott "Not hunkering down and doing everything possible to mitigate the coming inflation and currency upheavals, to me, smacks of fiddling while Rome burns."

I think he's doing what his financial advisers recommend. We'll see how effective his policies and decisions are as the future unfolds. (Unless of course, you and Edgar have the answers already...do you?)

Can I assume you don't remember Ronald "The Saint" Reagan initially dramatically lowering taxes, only to realize the error of his ways, and then raising them at least four time to get the ship back on course?

Regarding health care reform - Here's the word from one of those crazy "leftist" sources:

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kans.) told a group of local Kansas reporters on Wednesday, that opposition to the president's health care package had been driven by knee-jerk partisanship and urged Congressional Republicans to get on board a version of reform.

Anyone who pushes the Ayers/book topic is doomed to failure. They're engaging in pure speculation that - even if it were true - would probably never be proved since any incriminating evidence would have been long destroyed.

At the same time, some of those same hacks run in abject fear from doing things like ponting out that CNN and the NYT tried to deceive people. That involves a cut-and-dried, easy-to-understand fact, yet some of the same hacks who discussed the Ayers/book issue (like Goldberg) don't have the intelligence and/or the integrity to use them to help discredit the MSM.

I posted a bit about this last night. Imagine if she had a way of recording this chance encounter. Would have made some interesting TV for the 24-hour news cycle. As cameras get smaller and storage gets bigger, reporters, bloggers, and others will be able to just record everything from their perspective unobtrusively. That could lead to some fun times with he-said-she-said interviews, reducing interviewees' ability to deny they said something after the fact:Interviewee: "I didn't say that!"Blogger: "Let's go to the video I have."Interviewee: "Ah, uh, oh, hmmm......"

Next up, to drive the Birthers and other right-wing conspiracy nuts even crazier...Bill Ayers will divulge that a "Highly-placed radical friend of mine" managed to plant Obama's phony birth certificate before he ran for State Senator...And this was done as a result of a meeting Ayers chaired after noticing him in town as a community organizer who was "unusually articulate, for a black radical..." after their judgement was confirmed of Obama's high potential by him being handed the plum of Editor, Harvard Law Review...

Ayers may also say..."While is memory is fuzzy..I think I was the one who said 'Drop Barry!" - make it 'Barack' - because well-heeled Jewish and WASP progressives lap that shit up..But I think some other Communists also strongly suggested it"

Ayers, trolling to pop Birthers and Southern Fundie blood vessels.... can even issue meaningful denials..."No, I wasn't the one who told 'new Barack' to stop dating white bitches.

"The Brothers and Sistas in Chicago and at Colunbia passed that message onto 'Barry' when he showed up at student meetings with his rich WASP Muffies and hot Jews..." - "You ain't Authentic less you commit to going black. Be like Jesse. Pick a haughty, but stupid one, in case you want to go for lots of trim on the side, later.."

"The Brothers also mentioned Rev Wright as a fine mentor to buff his black bona fides.."

So, this woman, Anne Leary, runs up to bill Aryes acting like a total star fucker, taking pictures and the like. It is cool how he put on this right wing Squeaky Fromme wanna be kook and help her make a total ass out of herself. Thanks Ann for making my day. Also, thanks for feeding your Althouse Hillbillies. They were starting to foam at the mouth.

The complete inability of liberals to detect subtlety and nuance never ceases to amaze me. The point of this post was not how brilliant Ayres is, (btw it's AYRES) it was about how brilliant Ayres *thinks* he is. It was about how narcissistic and lame his game-playing is. It was about how he erroneously assumes he's smarter than a conservative blogger.

We already know Obama is an empty suit. The fact that various people are questioning his authorship of a (very tedious) book is just an interesting aside at this point.

"Anyone who pushes the Ayers/book topic is doomed to failure. They're engaging in pure speculation that - even if it were true - would probably never be proved since any incriminating evidence would have been long destroyed."

Doomed to failure, how? What goal of bringing up Ayers in connection to Obama do you think is going to fail?

It's speculation, can't be proven, but there is some pretty good evidence that Obama is a whole lot closer to Ayers than he ever wanted anyone to think. "Pals around with... " yes, that's about it.

But a goal for bringing it up? Other than "fun to speculate about" and possibly "of minor interest to History" do you think there is?

The 2012 election won't hinge on Obama's pre-Presidency associations because, unlike the first time, this time he's actually got some job experience to look at.

For better or worse.

I've been meaning to say for a while though, that this idea that people doing ineffective or even counter productive things need to be shut up is a wrong sort of idea. You think that going after the Ayers connection is a bad waste of time... and maybe it is. Or that people making a fuss at Town Hall meetings are counter productive... others obviously disagree. I happen to think that any mention whatsoever of illegal aliens in relation to health care is so far beyond non-starter, no matter how legitimate, because it can be so very easily twisted and spun into a desire for people to suffer and die, that the very suggestion makes me cringe.

We need not to decide for others. (And I mean "not" in a very pro-active rather than passive way.) A collection of people all making decisions independently, free to listen to suggestions and then accept or reject them, WILL coalesce ideas into order through emergence and that more-or-less coherent message or movement will be less brittle and more robust than any possible imposed order set forth by worry-worts who are intent on central planning or control.

So although I think that some interests and some actions or areas of focus are not what I would consider *helpful* the entire thing, in order to be dynamic and strong, requires that I don't waste my time trying to insist that other people not waste theirs.

On the topic of the post: I think that Althouse is being cute and provocative; but I really think that she's on to something.

If you read some of the more sober analyses of this ghost-writer theory, they make some interesting points: I recall, in particular, several obscure nautical terms and expressions common to both Ayers' writing, and this DFMF piece.

And despite his upbringing on islands, Obama doesn't strike me as a yachtsman.

Now, it's also entirely possible that Obama simply cribbed from Ayers; or maybe that he'd read some of Ayers' books shortly before writing his own. But given the fact that Ayers is a murderous terrorist son-of-a-bitch, I doubt that Obama would want to admit to being a big fan.

They two men worked on the same floor of the same building for a couple of years, and yet Obama claimed to have met him only a few times. Obama has always tried to minimize the depth of their relationship, to a degree that casts suspicion on himself.

I think Ayers did write the book, just like I believe that Ted Sorenson probably wrote Profiles in Courage, and Sarah Palin will have someone of her own proclivities assist her with her book. What I can't understand is why anybody cares. It didn't take this revelation to show me that Obama is not the wunderkind he was claimed to be. I've always thought he was a radical postmodernist masquerading as somebody who has some core beliefs.

I wish that Bill Ayers had been elected instead. He probably couldn't have done as much damage.

Bill Ayers played you like a fiddle, honey. This is exactly how he predicted it would play out: some truely hilarious backward blogger would run with it; others would lap it up as milk straight from the pussy's titty. Some sensible bloggers would laugh at them.

You aren't a very good reader! Try again. Read very slowly. That can help when the material is a little challenging. Really, you can stretch, and it may very well prove useful later in life. Okay? Good boy, then.

Has anyone investigated the possibility that Lynn Vincent wrote Dreams From My Father? I believe this question is still open.

Personally I think the late Saul Bellow ghost-wrote Obama's books. They both lived in Hyde Park, and Saul wrote fictional biographies. Obama's a blend of Augie March, Henderson the Rain King, and Herzog.